Acronis Storage Incorporates Notary With Blockchain and CloudRAID to Software-Defined Storage

Acronis International GmbH announced Acronis Storage, a software-defined storage product with blockchain-based data authentication and universal file, block and object support.

The world around us is becoming increasingly digital and the creation and value of data has expanded to include all parts of business and personal lives. This puts pressure on service providers who find themselves responsible for the integrity, safety and authenticity of customers’ data stored on their servers.

CloudRAID

Acronis Storage addresses these issues. A fast, universal, safe, easy, scale-out, cost-efficient software-defined storage solution with company’s CloudRAID and Notary with blockchain immutable validation, it unites block, file, and object workloads using commodity hardware.

This presents an business growth opportunity to service providers. The software-defined storage market size is expected to grow from $4.72 billion in 2016 to $22.56 billion in 2021, expanding at a CAGR of 36.7%.^(*) Such market growth is driven by the advantages of software-defined storage solutions over traditional storage systems and the need for cost optimization and easy management.

Fast and innovative
Based on Acronis Hybrid Cloud Architecture and together with Acronis Backup, DR, Acronis Files Cloud, and monitoring, Acronis Storage completes the product set available to service providers enabling them to meet the needs of their customers in an efficient way.

Earlier this year the company announced a long-term partnership with Scuderia Toro Rosso Formula One racing team. For both organizations, engineering is a huge component of success. Both firms focus on leadership, performance, and technology excellence, drawing success from vision, drive, teamwork and operational excellence. These shared characteristics can be summarized in three concepts: #1, fast, and innovative.

“Digital world is all around us. Just like many of our partners, Scuderia Toro Rosso fully depends on data. Our success on the track depends on data availability, making data protection a critical element in our business. We are proud to use Acronis technology to store and protect our most valuable asset – data,” said Franz Tost, principal, Scuderia Toro Rosso Team.

Acronis and Scuderia Toro Rosso celebrated the launch of Acronis Storage together with partners and customers at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX, during the United States Grand Prix. Toro Rosso is part of the most technologically advanced and data intensive sport, and the company has the technology to store and protect valuable data. The partnership between the two companies is an example of technological collaboration, innovation, and understanding the needs of always-on digital world.

Acronis Storage features:

Fast. It delivers performance through SSD caching, auto load balancing, auto data distribution, and parallel replication. Internal tests, for example, showed that Acronis Storage is five times faster than Ceph.
Universal. Acronis Storage provides a universal solution for all storage needs – hot and cold, and currently supports block and object data and will support files in the next update. It provides a set of storage connectivity and APIs including Amazon S3 and iSCSI.
Safe. It provides configurable levels of redundancy for stored data through CloudRAID and allows data authenticity verification through blockchain-based immutable logging and watermarking.
Efficient. It enables service providers to control the TCO of their storage infrastructure and increase storage capacity from gigabytes to petabytes without hurting the budget. For example, compared to Ceph, Acronis Storage delivers up to 55% lower TCO. It is achieved through lower hardware resource usage, adjustable redundancy, smart automation, better resource management, and, powerful centralised web-based management console.
Proven. With five years on the market powering company’s own global cloud infrastructure, Acronis Storage has undergone testing in the real world. The 2nd generation software is currently powering a global network of twelve datacenters, protecting over 50PB of data for more than 125,000 devices.

“Acronis is the first data protection company to adopt the blockchain as a data notarisation platform. We are delighted to work with Acronis and look forward to developing the Ethereum ecosystem for the benefit of all users,” said Vitalik Buterin, chief scientist, The Ethereum Foundation.

Acronis Storage is suitable for service providers, business and organizations who have the need to manage their storage capacity without any downtime. With five minutes to install and 14 clicks to configure, it can be installed and managed even by those without any system administration experience. It has a touchscreen-friendly web console and comes with a manual and troubleshooting guide.

“I’m very excited by Acronis Storage following our testing in the last few weeks. The capabilities of the product and Acronis’ forward thinking vision are going to make them a game changer in the storage market,” said Sebastian Nölting, CEO, Rausch Netzwerktechnik GmbH (RNT), distributor of datacenter server and storage solutions.

“A software-define storage solution that supports both cold and hot data, and different workloads, will be welcomed by the service providers’ community. And blockchain-based watermarking of data is a big plus,” said Alex Miroshnichenko, CEO, FlashGrid, Inc., a company specialising in developing open storage software for Oracle cloud customers.

“This year Acronis released the most complete set of data protection products based on our new hybrid cloud architecture. Just like the rest of our products, Acronis Storage is #1 in its class. Acronis Storage allows Service Providers to take control over their data and we are committed to helping them grow their business by providing the world’s best and fastest data protection solutions,” said Serguei Beloussov, founder and CEO, Acronis.

^(*) Software-Defined Storage Market by Component, MarketsAndMarkets.com